Page 19 of Chasing Trouble
Mac shrugged ruefully.“I tried that—she wouldn’t go for it.And I have to admit, with me checking up on her, I’m guessing she’d have been fine with the preparations she has made with a little more help.You should be proud of your daughter, sir.She’s a very hard worker.”
Daniel smiled a sad smile.“She’s a lot like her mother—hard working to a fault.If my wife hadn’t worked so hard, maybe she would have lived longer.But that’s on me; I brought her here thinking it would be safer.Didn’t turn out that way.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head.“No need to be sorry.As for Whitney, I am proud of her.And I’m guessing she has feelings for you, or she would already have run you off with her shotgun.”
Mac chuckled.“She is a spitfire.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed, “We have another aspect to consider, though.I’d say wait until her birthday in February to get married, but given the situation, we need to get you two to the preacher.Folks have already started talking.I overheard a couple of boys in Bolton when I came through talking about how their boss, Mac Wainwright, had a little gal he was shacking up with in the hills.Since I’d seen you in town once before with your sister and your mother, I knew who they were talking about.I also knew my property bordered yours.It wasn’t hard to put two and two together, so I got here as fast as I could.I don’t want anything bad going around about my daughter.She doesn’t deserve that.”
Mac frowned.“I disapprove of gossip, and I’ll address that when I get back to the ranch.”He had a few ideas about who might have been doing it.Talking about Whitney was unacceptable.
“You do that, son.”
“If I might ask, where have you been, sir?”Mac asked curiously.
“Call me Daniel,” he replied.“I’ve been working on a lumber crew over near Bannister.The job contracted until October first, but if you stayed until Thanksgiving, the pay was doubled what I’d already earned.For another six weeks, I couldn’t pass it up.It was too far away to come home on weekends, and the more hours I put in, the more I made.”
“They were really starting to worry, Daniel.”Mac didn’t have the right to chide his future father-in-law, but he wasn’t shy about voicing his opinions either.
Daniel nodded ruefully.“I figured they were, but I knew Whitney would take care of things here, so I stuck it out.”
By the state of Daniel's clothes, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that he was away from civilization and cut off from phone service.Besides, Whitney didn’t have a phone, so calling her wouldn’t have been an option anyway, even if he could afford a cell phone.Still, he could have found a way to send word, but it wasn’t Mac’s place to judge him.He was glad the man was back.
“Well, sir, those plans fit in just fine with mine.I have no desire to wait until spring to get married, either.Now that you are here, we don’t have to.I just have to convince Whitney to say yes.”
“You got a lap, use it,” he replied with a broad grin.
Mac chuckled.“If only it were that easy.”
***
INSIDE THE HOUSE, WHITNEYwas fuming as she paced the wooden flooring while waiting for her father and Mac to finish talking.She couldn’t believe her dad was threatening them with a shotgun wedding.
Not.Going.To.Happen.
She glanced at Luke and Amelia.They were busy at the table with the coloring books and pencils Mac had brought them.She knew they were taking in everything they heard, just keeping quiet as instructed.She’d been the same way when she was little.
She paused and listened with her ear to the door.All she could hear was low tones, and now, laughter was coming through the wooden obstruction.They were laughing at her?When she saw the door handle start to move, she backed up quickly, then stood there tapping her foot and glaring as they both walked inside.
“Are you two finished organizing my life?”she asked, folding her arms across her breasts.
Daniel set his rifle down near the coatrack and took off his outerwear, his blue eyes gleaming at her.“Watch your tone, young lady,” he cautioned.“Seems to me you’ve already organized your life.You knew better than to have a man on the place with no chaperone.You know how people talk.According to Mac, you had another option.So, unless you’re willing to be the laughingstock of Bolton, where peoplearetalking, I might add, and be ruined for any other Christian man, you had best be getting a dress ready for the preacher in the morning.We’ll be going to church, and I’ll make sure you two get married right away.No daughter of mine is going to be a dirty word on anyone’s lips,” he growled.
Whitney’s face fell as his comments sucker punched her in the stomach.When he put it like that, the gray area she’d been living in turned to stark black and white.Here in the hills with no one else around, their business was private.Now it wasn’t anymore.
She bit her lip and turned to stare at Mac.“Is...Is your family laughing at me?Making fun of me?Are you just using me?”she accused, the hurt cutting deep.“No one but your family knows you are here.”
Mac’s face looked like a thundercloud.“Of course, I’m not using you.We haven’t even done anything; how can I be using you?”he growled quietly, glancing at Luke and Amelia out of the corner of his eye.He shot her father a pained look.
“Was it necessary to speak to your daughter like that, Daniel?”
Daniel’s glance softened.“I’m sorry, Whitney, but you needed to know.If you two have feelings for each other, then it’s better this way.Folks might speculate about an early child, but when it doesn’t happen, then they’ll rethink the situation.But you know how folks are.What they don’t know for sure, they make up.”
“I told you nothing happened,” she insisted, not feeling very forgiving at the moment.“If we had gone to Mac’s home, then our home would have been open to the theft of what little we have in supplies.Those two men might have even moved in as squatters, making them hard to remove, not to mention using everything I had stored for the winter.Staying here to protect our place was the only option if you wanted a home to come back to,” she pointed out.“Mac didn’t want us to stay alone, and I concurred and allowed him to stay here for a few days.We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“And I believe you, honey,” he relented gently.“I know when you’re lying to me and when you aren’t, but others won’t.I don’t want that stigmatism for the two of you.”
